


Stars in Our Sky

by yerawizardlani



Category: The Gifted (TV 2017)
Genre: Clarice Fong deserves good things, F/M, I'm already so obsessed with this show, Thunderblink, it's a problem
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-01-29 12:11:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12630813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yerawizardlani/pseuds/yerawizardlani
Summary: An exploration into the life of Clarice Fong: her past, her escape from the Mutant Detention Center, and her relationship with the Mutant Underground. Because I am incapable of waiting for canon.





	1. Arrest

**Author's Note:**

> So for now this is kind of just an outlet for the many emotions and ideas that I have concerning Clarice Fong as a character. It may or may not become an actual story over time.

Summers in Atlanta sucked ass. Although, Clarice thought they were probably still better than _winters_ in Atlanta. Clarice would take even the muggy soup of Georgia Summer over sleeping in the freezing cold every night. It still didn't make the heat suck any less.

Clarice watched as workers unloaded the food truck in the July heat, her hair sticking uncomfortably to the back of her neck as she waited for her opportunity. She silently willed them to hurry it up so that she could find some shade. Her stomach growled as she watched a crate of apples get passed down; it’d been at least two days since her last meal. The whistle blew, a signal for the lunch break, and Clarice straightened where she stood, waiting somewhat impatiently for the workers to disperse. They left the truck virtually unguarded, and Clarice fought back a grin.

Biting her lip, she focused her gaze on the inside of the truck, grateful for the enhanced vision that came courtesy of her freaky eyes. Power sizzled at her palms as she concentrated on creating a portal that would transport her inside the tuck. The smell of ozone in the air told her it was working. As she watched, the portal expanded large enough for her to step through. It snapped shut behind her, and Clarice wobbled slightly at the wave of dizziness that crashed through her. Portals stole a lot of energy, and the days without food didn’t help anything.

She waited a beat to see if anyone had noticed her portaling, prepared to get the hell out of dodge at the first sign of trouble. Her muscles relaxed the longer time passed without anyone raising the alarm, and Clarice set to work, anxious to get this over with. She shoved food into her messenger bag with brutal efficiency, focusing on the food that wouldn’t spoil easily. On impulse, she grabbed a handful of apples like the ones she’d been eyeing earlier, mouth watering at the thought of fresh produce, even as her more pragmatic self screamed that they wouldn’t last past the end of the week.

 A scuffling noise at the back of the truck made her freeze. She turned, her eyes searching the dim light for any signs of movement. Something caught the corner of her eye, and she tilted her head for a better look.

Clarice was confident that without her supersight, or whatever you wanted to call it, she would have completely missed the odd shimmer in the air. To anyone else, the mutant hiding would have been invisible, but squinting, she could see the way the light bent unnaturally in that one spot, revealing their location.

“I know you’re there, so you might as well show yourself,” she whispered, still cognizant of the fact that there were guards within easy hearing range. The distortion of light flickered slightly as the mutant shifted, and suddenly a small child shimmered into view.

Even if she hadn’t just seen this kid flick out of some sort of Invisibility Mode, Clarice would have recognized them as a mutant. The child was small, six-years-old at _most,_ and so skinny that it hurt to look at the prominent way their bones stood out against their shimmering blue skin. Clarice’s eyes darted to the set of iridescent wings poking out of two holes cut into the back of their shirt before meeting a pair of shockingly blue eyes, wide with terror. The child stood there, trembling, and Clarice’s heart gave a twist.

Clarice chewed her lip, unsure exactly what she was meant to do in this situation. She didn’t _do_ kids. Her specialties lay in sarcasm and exit strategies, not the nurturing crap that worked so well with children. But she couldn’t just ignore a terrified child; she wasn’t _heartless._ Crouching down so that the kid could see her own mutant eyes, Clarice offered a tense smile. The expression felt unnatural on her face, but it seemed enough for the kid to return a small smile of their own.

“You got a name?” Clarice asked quietly.

“Madi,” the child whispered, still looking as though she was considering running. Clarice didn’t blame her. With an appearance like hers, Madi probably didn’t have a lot of positive experiences when it came to other people; Clarice could relate.

“I’m Clarice,” she said, offering her hand to shake, a small voice in her head telling her that this was not exactly the time to be making introductions. She brushed it off as Madi tentatively reached for her hand, giving it a small shake before snatching her arm back as if afraid of getting stung. It made Clarice’s chest feel like a large animal was sitting on it.

“Are you alone?” Clarice asked, already guessing at the answer. She wasn’t exactly surprised when Madi nodded, but she wasn’t happy about it either. Something in the little girl’s expression hit a little too close to home.

Clarice’s jumbled thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps approaching the truck. Without thinking, Clarice grabbed Madi by the arm and tugged her behind several crates of produce, crouching down beside her and pressing a finger to her lips. Madi looked at her with wide, panicked eyes, but nodded her understanding. Clarice considered her options for a moment. She didn’t have the juice to portal far, and without being able to see where she was going, she couldn’t guarantee that Madi wouldn’t be hurt if she took the girl with her. Any minute now, the men would be back to finish unloading the truck, and then she and Madi would be discovered. Clarice might be able to get away on her own, but she couldn’t just _leave_ the kid. Even with Madi’s invisibility, all it would take would be for one of the men to bump into her while working.

The familiar itch to run made Clarice’s fingers spark, and Madi’s gaze fell to watch, eyes widening. Clarice was almost gratified to see the absence of fear in the kid’s eyes as she watched the blue and purple sparks bounce. An idea was forming: a completely _stupid_ idea that was going to get Clarice either shot or arrested. Possibly both.

“Shit,” she muttered to herself, already regretting this decision. Now was _so_ not the time to be discovering a hero complex. She turned back to Madi, who was still staring transfixed down at Clarice’s flickering palms.

“I’m going to draw their attention away from this truck,” Clarice explained, and Madi’s eyes shot to hers in surprise, “When I do, you’re going to get the hell out, got that?” Madi nodded, frowning.

“What about you?” the girl asked, and Clarice gave a humorless laugh.

“Don’t worry about me,” Clarice ordered, not answering further, “Just get out as soon as the coast is clear. _Don’t_ be seen.” Madi shimmered slightly.

“They won’t see me,” the girl said, confident, and it was enough to make Clarice smile. She let out a shuddery breath, steeling herself for what she was about to do.

“Stay here,” she repeated one last time, “And get out as soon as you’re able.” Madi nodded just as Clarice opened a portal, the crates in front of them replaced by a view of the parking lot as she remembered it. Clarice grimaced.

“Please don’t let me lose a limb,” she whispered to herself, closing her eyes tight as she jumped through the portal. It vanished as soon as her feet landed on asphalt, Madi still in the truck. Clarice sucked in a breath, blinking to clear the spots from her eyes before straightening. Two of the men guarding the truck were staring slack-jawed at her. Good. At least she wouldn’t have to work to get their attention.

“Hey, boys,” she greeted, “Don’t suppose you can just forget you saw me?” In an instant, both guards had their Tasers drawn, pointed directly at her chest. One of them radioed for backup.

“Guess not,” Clarice muttered under her breath, already reaching for another portal. Her vision swam slightly as the hole opened up. She jumped through, landing across the street and out of range of their Tasers. It took them a moment to realize exactly what had happened before they spotted her and with a shout, gave chase. Too drained to handle another portal, Clarice spun on her heels and kicked into a sprint. She needed to draw them away from that truck. She needed to give Madi a chance to escape, and then she needed to get the hell out of there.

Their footsteps sounded behind her, slapping against the concrete as they ran. Clarice’s lungs burned as she forced her way through a street filled with pedestrians. Not for the first time, she cursed her inability to blend in with a crowd. Turning a corner, she ran head first into a broad chest. She uttered a hasty apology, just catching a glimpse of warm brown eyes before tearing off again, the sounds of shouting getting closer. She turned into an alleyway and groaned when she realized it was a dead end. Frantically, she reached for the energy to create a portal, not caring that she was overextending her ability. Her escape opened just as the guards appeared around the corner, followed closely by some of Atlanta’s Finest. She tuned out their shouts, concentrating on the portal. As she stepped through, she heard the crack of a gunshot and felt a sharp pain tear through her left arm. She gave a small cry as she tumbled through the closing portal, knees hitting the pavement as it closed behind her. Her vision swam as the world tilted. She couldn’t feel her arms. Her body went numb and Clarice’s final thought was her hope that at least Madi had gotten away. The world went black.

 


	2. John

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of John POV because someone wondered if the set of brown eyes belonged to a certain mutant... ;)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey you guys! I'm glad that people seemed to like the last chapter, and I'm so grateful for all of the lovely comments I received. I've been a little busy moving across the country and working on starting my own company, so I haven't really had time to work on this as much as I would have liked. But here's a brief John POV just for you!!! Hope everyone's having a happy holiday season!

**BIG MISTAKE BIG MISTAKE! MY BAD!!! TOTALLY MY FAULT! MIA CULPA! LO SIENTO!!!! I only posted HALF of the intended chapter last time because copy and paste is a bitch and I was dealing w/ back pain so I didn't have the energy to do a full read-through like I NORMALLY  WOULD. Here is the full chapter this time. Sorry for anyone who was confused by the chapter earlier. Sorry!!!!**

* * *

 

John found that he enjoyed supply runs. He didn’t get out into the city much anymore. Not unless he was helping to track down a mutant to bring back to Headquarters, and really that was an entirely different kind of outing. In comparison, supply runs were usually pretty tame. Tame enough that Lorna had stopped insisting he bring backup along.

That was the real reason John enjoyed supply runs, although a kernel of guilt ate away at the thought. At Headquarters, he was constantly bombarded with questions. People wanting to know when they’d be moving on, wanting to know if he’d found their loved ones yet, wanting to know the _plan._ There, he was their leader, the person they looked to for guidance and comfort. Out here, he was just another guy walking down the street. When John had accepted this job, he hadn’t expected it to feel quite so much like _war,_ but every day was some new battle, and with all of the people looking to him, he felt like he was drowning. Supply runs were the tiny breaths of fresh air he allowed himself in order to keep on swimming.

So John really wasn’t expecting anything exciting to happen on his trip into the city. It was hot, and the heat made everyone in Atlanta slow, like wading through molasses. John thought he might grab a couple tubs of ice cream for the kids at HQ, as a treat. Summer was when a lot of the mutant children got restless.

He was heading toward one of the predetermined drop-off points when his senses started buzzing. Something had shifted in the air. John had figured out a while back how to let his enhanced senses fade into the background; it was the only way he could function as any semblance of a normal human being, but he had also learned to notice certain patterns: shifts in his surroundings that could spell trouble. An elevated heartbeat, for example…

John tensed, stopping where he stood as he reached out to determine what was happening. The heartbeat that had caught his attention roared in his ears. Judging by the sound, whoever it belonged to was small, possibly female, and running from something. John let his other senses loose, and a blurry picture formed in his mind, pieced together from fragments of information: A young woman’s frame, running in sneakers that had definitely seen better days. He caught a whiff of ozone and frowned in confusion. Suddenly, the picture vanished, and John practically jumped in surprise. What?

Curious, he reached out to find the girl again. This time, he caught the impression of three guards chasing her and the sound of another heartbeat, smaller and more frantic, running in the opposite direction: a child. It took him another second to relocate the girl from before. She was several yards away from where she’d been just moments before, still running. The air around her smelled like a lightning storm. His frown deepened: the way she moved…shouldn’t be possible.

 _Mutant_ , a voice in his head whispered, and something in his bones recognized the truth of the situation. Whoever this girl was, she was a mutant, and she was in trouble. Without thinking, he made toward her direction, not even considering what his plan was in this scenario, but knowing that his job, ostensibly, was to help all mutants, and this girl definitely needed his help.

Later, he would chalk it up to the odd way that this mutant girl moved, because that was the only reason he could think of for why he would be caught so off guard. He was still concentrating on her last “jump,” for lack of a better term, when she ran head first into his chest.

John barely had time to take in the dark hair streaked with purple and brilliant green eyes before she was running past him. He turned, already poised to run after her, when a calm voice that sounded too much like Sonia chimed in his head, reminding him that he had responsibilities: people he needed to protect beyond this one girl. He paused, unsure even as the guards and policemen rushed past him. He could hear the girl cursing to herself as she struggled to make another jump: it was clear that however she was doing this, it was taking its toll. He could feel the vibrations in the air as her hands shook. He heard the _thwing_ of a bullet, and the dull thud as it made contact just before she finally managed another jump, this time to the alley across the street. This time, when she came through, he heard her drop, her heartbeat frantic in his ears even as he could feel her body begin to shut down. He moved to go help her, but the cops had already spotted her, and the voice in his head reminded him that there was no way he’d be able to get an unconscious girl through the streets of Atlanta in broad daylight with authorities chasing after him. He clenched his fist in frustration, letting the feel of his nails biting into his skin focus his senses.

Once again, the sound of another frightened heartbeat caught his attention. Not the girl passed out in an alleyway, but someone else: someone considerably smaller. Reluctantly, he let his sense of the mutant girl being dragged away fade in favor of focusing in on this new heartbeat. It was light, and thrumming, similar to the heartbeats he caught from birds, but this one was larger than any bird he’d ever seen, although still too small to be a fully-grown human: a child, maybe? Something told him that this was connected with the girl being loaded into a dark SUV. Was it her kid? Narrowing his eyes at the girl’s unconscious body, he saw that she was young. Was she even old enough to have a kid? Maybe. It was difficult to tell. Unconscious, she looked impossibly young, but there was something about the memory of her eyes that hinted that she might not be that much younger than him: definitely old enough to have a kid then.

John refocused on the child. It was small, light-boned, and the way the air moved around it was…odd. Not like a normal child. He could hear the sound of rustling feathers. His brain whirled. If the kid had feathers, that would certainly explain the way the air currents moved around it. He tried to determine how far off they were. Not far. He should be able to see them from where he stood, but John couldn’t see any frightened-looking children with wings in the vicinity. He scanned again; worried he’d missed them. Then his eyes caught on something: a faint shimmer in the air. Anyone without his senses would have missed it.

Moving casually toward the disturbance, John was careful not to seem like anything was amiss. He didn’t want to frighten the child any more than they already were, and he didn’t to tip anyone else off to their presence. The surrounding crowd was already on high alert from the earlier scene, and he could hear tense murmurings as they speculated what had happened. He heard the word ‘mutant’ muttered suspiciously by one person and determinedly pressed on. He needed to get this kid out of here before things got any more dangerous.

He got close enough that he would have been able to hear the quick panicked _huffs_ even without his super senses. He carefully looked away from the spot where the child stood hidden, his hands in his pockets as if he were just enjoying the sunshine in this particular spot.

“Whoever you are,” he whispered under his breath, “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m with the Mutant Underground, and I can help you.” The sound of breathing stopped, but he could tell that they hadn’t run away, which was probably the best sign he was going to get to continue.

“The girl that just got caught, did you know her?” he asked, careful not to move his lips too much in case anyone was watching. He waited patiently as the child beside him finally let out a shuddery breath.

“Her name’s Clarice,” the child answered finally, “She was helping me. That’s why she got caught.” John’s stomach twisted guiltily at these words.

“We’ll figure out a way to get her help,” he promised without thinking, and the voice in his head screamed that there was no helping Clarice now. He shoved that thought aside. It didn’t matter that it was probably impossible, he’d do his damnedest to help get Clarice free, if only because any mutant taken while helping a small child probably didn’t deserve to be locked up in some shitty facility for the rest of their lives. There was a moment of silence, and then John felt a set of trembling fingers wrap around his own hand. He gave a gentle, reassuring squeeze.

“Will you come with me?” he asked, “So that I can help you?” He waited patiently for an answer.

“Yes,” they said finally. John’s lips curled up slightly, relieved.

“Good,” he murmured. “I’m John,” he introduced finally.

“I’m Madi,” the little girl whispered, so soft that no one else would’ve heard her.

“Nice to meet you, Madi,” he told her, “Let’s get you somewhere safe, okay?” And without another word, he led the invisible girl back to where he’d left the car, wondering if Sonia might be able to alter a few shirts to accommodate the girl’s wings, and trying not to think too hard about the girl, Clarice, being led away to who knows what.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sidenote: My best friend and I recently started a podcast together talking about politics, LGBT issues, and world religion. It's pretty fun, and if you guys would like to check it out, I'd be greatly appreciative!! 
> 
> Here's the link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/lani-chesh-only-confused-about-taxes/id1322696957?mt=2


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